Whew!

OK, so I know I'm totally lame for being away so long. Let's get caught up.

So I've been gone for 3 of the past 5 weeks. Went to Seattle to babysit the kiddos while KWW was in a conference. Big props to Bladio for being awesome. All of this was done with Simon's absurd tonsils and strep throat. An excuse we had actually used to get out of a trip the week before.

The New York for a week of Babysitting the kiddos while KWW was at a conference. This time, for the first occaison in as long as I can remember, neither kiddo got sick as a direct result of the travelling. Spent a good part of every day in one f many parks, and even got to see some Carleton friends--Anupam, Elyse and lttle man Dev. (Pronounced "Dave"--a perfect blend of traditional indian culture and complete assimilation). Also got to have lunch from a street vendor in the park with my man, Ed-Dog. Also very fun and great with the kiddos. For basically spending a lot of every day trying to keep either kid from being kidnapped, (or in Eloise's case, being arrested for baby stroller theft), I got to see a good deal of art. Speant like 3 hours at the Met and went to the National Academy show, where I got to see the work of many of the people I have studied with over the years.

The, the day after we get home, I drive to Chicago for a week to do a portrait commission. I don't really do portraits too much and those of you who have known what my work has been like for many years, you know that its only very recently that the person I'm painting actually looks like the person I'm painting. I was doing this commission for another artist, only one 25 years my elder and far more successful than I am likely to be anytime real soon.

So, I basically figured I'd be in for a week of--What?!? That's Crap!

The subject was the artist's 96 year old mother. seriously, 96. I'm pretty sure she's the oldest person I ahve ever met and I was completely impressed. After I was certain that she worked longer than I had the night before (yes...I didn'y get out of the studio until 10 last night...) she would make me lunch, as me very politely which contemporary artists I liked. Thankfully, we deeply agreed on Richard Diebenkorn..seriously he's great. OK, so its not like he's contemporary, but he only died 15 years ago.

When I was finished, she was very impressed with the likeness (Whew!) but told that all the blacks I used became holes in the picture.